JB Insights
Limelight is built on the pillars of innovation, ethics, and education
Pooja Madhavan, Founder & MD– Limelight Lab Grown Diamonds, speaking to JewelBuzz offers compelling insights into the lab grown diamonds (LGDs)sector. She says that LGDs are increasingly being positioned not as rivals to natural diamonds, but as complementary alternatives that align with evolving consumer values. She said that
Limelight is built on the pillars of innovation, ethics, and education. Brands like Limelight emphasize accessibility, ethical sourcing, and modern luxury, allowing consumers to choose larger or more innovative designs without sacrificing quality or emotional value.
How would you describe the current state of the lab-grown diamond market in India?
The lab-grown diamond market in India is in a transformative phase. What started as a niche segment has now entered mainstream awareness, especially over the last 2–3 years. Consumers are more informed, curious, and open to alternatives that offer the same physical, chemical, and optical properties as natural diamonds but with added benefits in terms of value, ethics, and sustainability. The industry is experiencing double-digit growth, and we’re just beginning to tap into its full potential.
How are lab-grown diamonds positioned in relation to natural diamonds — are they competing or complementing?
At Limelight, we don’t view lab-grown diamonds as a competitor to natural diamonds, but rather as a complementary choice that meets the evolving preferences of today’s consumer. While natural diamonds continue to hold deep cultural and emotional value, lab-grown diamonds provide an accessible luxury, often allowing consumers to upgrade in size or design without compromising on quality or ethics.
What strategies are LGD brands using to build trust in a market long dominated by natural diamonds?
Transparency and education are at the heart of our strategy. We actively engage in consumer awareness campaigns, retail training, and influencer collaborations to dispel myths and explain the science and sustainability behind lab-grown diamonds. Certification by reputed gemological institutes like IGI and SGL also ensures credibility. Trust builds when customers understand that LGDs are not imitations but real diamonds created through advanced technology.
Which consumer segments are driving demand for lab-grown diamonds in India — Gen Z, millennials, or value-conscious families?
We’re seeing strong traction from Gen Z and millennial consumers, particularly those in metro cities who are environmentally conscious, digitally savvy, and financially astute. However, it’s not just limited to the younger demographic. Increasingly, value-conscious families are also recognizing the benefits of lab-grown diamonds, especially for occasions like weddings and milestone gifting.
Are you seeing growing demand from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, or is it still urban-centric?
While the early adoption was definitely urban-centric, the narrative is now shifting. Thanks to digital penetration and growing retail footprints, we’re witnessing rising interest from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. These markets are curious and aspirational – they’re asking the right questions and seeking value without compromising on quality or tradition.
What motivates Indian consumers to choose lab-grown over natural diamonds — price, size, ethics, or fashion?
It’s a mix of all these factors. Price and size remain the most compelling reasons, consumers love that they can afford a larger, more dazzling stone at a better value. But ethics and sustainability are becoming increasingly important, especially for younger buyers. There’s also a strong fashion-forward trend, where consumers enjoy experimenting with contemporary and bespoke designs that LGDs make more accessible.
How do you position your lab-grown diamond brand differently from traditional jewellers?
Limelight is built on the pillars of innovation, ethics, and education. Unlike traditional jewellers who may carry LGDs as an extension, we specialize in them. Our focus is on offering globally certified, high-quality lab-grown diamonds that are stylish yet sustainable. Our storytelling, marketing, and design aesthetics are all tailored to reflect the modern consumer’s values and lifestyle.
Are Indian weddings opening up to LGDs as a viable choice for bridal jewellery?
Absolutely. We’re seeing more brides and families opting for lab-grown diamond bridal sets, especially in urban India. The younger generation is reimagining traditions and they want elegance with ethics. With LGDs, brides can now wear their dream designs with larger stones without the premium price tag, and with the confidence of making a responsible choice.
What innovations in design or tech are helping LGD brands stand out?
Technology is the backbone of LGDs, but design innovation is what sets brands apart. At Limelight, we use CAD-driven design, 3D prototyping, and AI-enabled customization to deliver precision-crafted pieces. Additionally, the use of blockchain and digital certificates enhances traceability and transparency giving consumers confidence in their purchase.
Where do you see the lab-grown diamond market in India heading over the next five years?
We foresee exponential growth. As awareness deepens, prices stabilize, and acceptance broadens, LGDs will become a significant part of India’s fine jewellery market potentially contributing to 15–20% of the sector. Retail expansion, government support, and innovation will further catalyze this shift. We believe India can also become a global hub for both the manufacturing and consumption of lab-grown diamonds.
How can the LGD industry work collectively to create stronger ethical and environmental standards?
Collaboration is key. Industry stakeholders must come together to establish unified standards for sustainability, traceability, and ethical production. Third-party audits, global certifications, and industry-wide guidelines can build consumer confidence. Associations like IGDA (International Grown Diamond Association) are already making strides, and with collective effort, the LGD industry can lead a new era of conscious luxury.
JB Insights
The Woman Wearing The Diamond Was Never The One The Ad Was Talking To
Disha Shah, Founder & Designer, DiAi Designs Says That The Brands That Shift From “She Deserves It” to “She Chose It” Won’t Just Win Cultural Relevance – They’ll Own The Future Of Jewellery Marketing.
Indian jewellery advertising has always centred the woman. She has been the face of every campaign, draped in gold, luminous at the occasion, receiving the gift with practised grace. What she rarely was, until recently, was the intended audience.
The creative language of the category was built around a genuine economic reality. For decades, the buyer in Indian fine jewellery was the patriarch, the husband, the father, the family elder making a financial decision on behalf of a woman whose purchasing autonomy was limited. Advertising followed the money. The gift reveal, the bridal close-up, the family approval shot: these were not arbitrary creative choices. They reflected who held the purse strings, and they became so embedded in the category’s visual grammar that they outlasted the conditions that created them by an entire generation.
That structural reality has now reversed. Jewellery purchases now extend beyond weddings and festivals to daily wear, driven by financially independent working women. The self-purchasing woman is no longer an emerging segment; she is the category’s fastest-growing buyer, approaching the decision differently from the buyer the industry originally designed itself around. She is not waiting for an occasion. She is not waiting for someone to present a box. She researched the piece, chose it, and bought it because she wanted it.
The advertising, for the most part, has not caught up.
Some brands are beginning to recognise this. CaratLane’s #WearYourWins movement and Tanishq’s sustained push toward the “woman as decision-maker” are meaningful steps. But what makes these campaigns commercially smart is not just cultural alignment. Research from Harvard Business School finds that women systematically provide less favourable assessments of their own performance and potential than equally performing men. This documented self-promotion gap persists even when women know they have outperformed others. Campaigns that actively celebrate female self-recognition are not just filling a creative gap. They are responding to a behavioural reality that has gone largely unaddressed in the category. The brands doing this well are not being progressive for their own sake. They are being accurate about who their buyer is and what she needs to hear.
Look at the Women’s Day 2026 campaigns across the industry. The conversation is clearly starting to pivot. Brands are finally stepping away from the usual gifting tropes and reframing jewellery as a tool for personal milestones and self-expression. But these remain exceptions. The dominant campaign language of Indian jewellery- the gesture, the reveal, the woman being seen rather than deciding- has not structurally changed.
The media mix tells the same story. Titan leaned heavily on television in FY25, with ad volume surging to 77% of its mix, a broadcast medium built for household reach rather than the individual, financially independent woman who now represents the category’s fastest-growing buyer.
Meanwhile, digitally native BlueStone achieved 50% of online jewellery ad volumes on a budget nearly ten times smaller than Titan’s. The channel that reaches the self-purchasing woman directly is delivering outsized results on a fraction of the spend. The implication for where the industry should be directing its creative attention is fairly clear.
Consider what a brief genuinely written for this buyer would look like. No occasion in the shot. No second person in the frame presents anything. The opening line is not “for the woman who deserves to be celebrated.” It is “she saw it, she wanted it, she bought it.” The product earns its place not through sentiment but through desire. The copy does not explain why she is worth it. It assumes she already knows. That is not a tonal adjustment. It is a fundamentally different creative architecture, and very few briefs in this category have been written that way.
The LGD category has a specific opportunity here that established houses do not. Without decades of legacy campaign language to protect, an independent designer in this space can build advertising from a blank page, one written entirely around the woman who is actually making the purchase. The brief does not have to accommodate inherited assumptions about who the buyer is or what she is waiting for. That is not a small advantage. In a category where the dominant creative language was built around a buyer who is no longer the one making the decision, starting without that inheritance may be the most powerful creative position available.
The woman wearing the diamond has always been visible. What is changing now is who gets to decide. The brands that build their creative around that reality will not just be more culturally relevant. They will be better positioned for every year that follows. The advertising has not caught up yet. But the buyer already has.
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JewelBuzz is Asia’s First Digital Jewellery Media & India’s No.1 B2B Jewellery Magazine, published by AM Media House. Since 2016, we’ve been the trusted source for jewellery news, market trends, trade insights, exhibitions, podcasts, and brand stories, connecting jewellers, retailers, and industry professionals worldwide.